“We can’t make it that far,” Catarina said. “We’ve got to move him quickly. Our flat is just on Farringdon Street. That will have to do for now.”

“All right, Sister. Let’s get him in the ambulance.”

He opened the back and assisted them in getting Jem inside.

“I’ll be back in one moment,” Catarina said to them. “I just need to get a few supplies.”

She dashed back into the hospital. Tessa climbed into the back with Jem, and Charlie got into the driver’s seat.

“Don’t usually take patients to nurses’ flats,” Charlie said, “but needs must when the devil drives. Sister Loss always looks after them. When my Mabel was having our second, she had a terrible spell. I thought we was going to lose them both. Sister Loss, bless her. She saved them both. I wouldn’t have Mabel or my Eddie without them. Whatever she needs.”

Tessa had heard many stories like this. Catarina was both a warlock and a mundane nurse with over a hundred years of experience. She had nursed in the last Great War. Old soldiers were always coming up to her and saying how she was “the spitting image of that nurse who saved me in the last one.” But, of course, she couldn’t be. That was twenty years ago, and Catarina was still so young. Catarina stood out to them because of her dark skin. They did not see a blue woman with white hair—they saw a nurse from the West Indies. She had faced considerable prejudice, but it was clear that not only was Catarina a good nurse, she was the best nurse in all of London. Anyone who got Catarina as a nurse was considered lucky. Even the most miserable bigot desired to live, and Catarina nursed all who came to her with equanimity. She could not save them all, but there were always a few, at least one a day, who survived something unsurvivable because Sister Loss was the one at their side. Some called her the Angel of St. Bart’s.

Jem stirred and groaned lightly.

“Don’t you worry, mate,” Charlie called back to him. “Best nurses in the city, this lot. You couldn’t be in safer hands.”

Jem tried to smile—but instead he shuddered, and blood trickled from the side of his mouth. Tessa immediately wiped it away with the edge of her cloak and leaned close to him.

“You hold on, James Carstairs,” she said, trying to sound brave. She gripped his hand in hers. She had forgotten how wonderful it was to hold Jem’s hands—his long, graceful hands, the ones that could produce such beautiful music from the violin.

“Jem,” she whispered, leaning low, “you must hold on. You must. Will needs you to. I need you to.”

Jem’s hand tightened on hers.